Community Kindness by Kelly Beevers

Community Kindness

By Kelly Beevers

Community looks like a knock at the door,

a tall tower-fan-style space heater, chord

wrapped around it. Another knock, a canvas duffle

bag snapped shut left on the porch stuffed

full with coveralls, well worn and three sizes too big,

a work coat lined with fleece, old bailing twine

tied in a tangle in the left pocket, and a warm hat with

down-filled ear flaps on either side. Another knock,

an electric tea kettle - to heat bottled water next time

your pipes freeze, she kindly said.

The door knocks continue, one after another.

Two faces, each with smiling eyes, the only visible part of

their bundled up faces. Their truck still running in my drive, hooked

up to a goose neck livestock trailer with a large

wood splitter and a quarter chord of wood already split inside.

Where’s this big pile of yours that needs splitting?

They inquired, ready to get to work.

Knock knock. The bed of the neighbor’s side-by-side full of freshly

gathered wood from the forest ten miles up the dirt road.

Many hands making light work as they stacked the logs on my porch

before I could get past the barking dog to door, handle beyond

cold to the touch, screen window lined with ice crystals.

Without a knock the straw bales arrived. Strong, generous

hands unloaded them one by one stacking each square end to end

the exterior perimeter of my delightful yet drafty wood cabin.

In a former life, an earlier version of me felt like

she needed space. Self proclaimed as fiercely

independent, I built my identity on not needing

anyone, anything, any.

But as the snow blows through the seams of the west-facing windows

and a bitter wind drafts under the well worn and cracking wooden

floor boards, I fell warm.

Warmed from the inside out and soon by the outside in

by those I find myself needing, those I hope need me too.

And as my humble house heats up, I realize I have begun to

warm to a new identity, one that is integrally part of a larger whole.